ESPN - Where Racist Hypocrisy Lives

If you are a sports fan, its pretty much impossible to avoid ESPN. Therefore, if you watch ESPN during the summer months you are forced to endure manufactured stories and features that are in no way meant to inform, but instead used to drum up completely unfounded and wholly unnecessary controversy. In 2008, ESPN is using a combination of Brett Favre's retirement status and their own "Titletown" series to take up most of their airtime. Sure, lip service is paid to baseball and other sports, but if you take any time watching the channel you can easily see what their focus is upon.

I bring up this present day programming to illustrate the racist and hypocritical coverage that ESPN creates. It was a short three years ago that the network did the same thing to Terrell Owens that it has now done to Brett Favre. Thanks in part to ESPN's coverage, TO became public enemy #1 for contract demands he was making towards the Philadelphia Eagles. As is par with the course, meaningless events became overblown news stories, such as TO's agent holding a press conference or a fight in preseason training camp. Furthermore, virtually every talking head on ESPN went well out of their way to convict Owens in the court of public opinion before the entire story even played itself out. So thanks to ESPN's willingness to create controversy in Owens' contract dispute and their incredible pull they have in shaping public opinion on such issues thanks to the sports coverage monopoly they have, Terrell Owens career was forever changed. Nevermind the fact that Owens obviously loves the spotlight, the true crime in this entire saga from three years ago was in that TO is now commonly portrayed as a greedy thug who cares more about himself than any team he has ever been on. This depiction has become so engrained in public thinking that all of TO's ensuing accomplishments have taken a backseat to his perceived nature. Forget that Owens has scored double-digit touchdowns since joining Dallas, or that he has never had an issue with the law, or even that he has been a model teammate for his new team, the bottom line is that he will always be better known for the description that ESPN created for him three years ago.

Now fast forward to the present day. Its painfully obvious that ESPN is desperate for another publicity horse to ride during the slow days of summer. You'd think that they'd jump at a chance for any mention of a story involving Terrell Owens, considering how obsessed they have been to crucify the man during any of their television shows or game coverage, especially if the story possibly involved one of their own writers. Therefore, it brought a smile to my face to read the following account from ESPN writer Sam Alipour, and then the overwhelming lack of mention of the event in the following days from the network.

"Terrell Owens was standing over me. I'm told he was the first do-gooder on the scene of the accident. That he helped me to my feet and off the street to safe ground. That he didn't leave my side. It seems the mercurial Dallas Cowboys receiver is my hero. But my hero looks scared, and this scares me."Wow, you all right, man?" Owens kept asking me, but in a manner that would suggest there is no possible way that I, in fact, could be all right. "Don't move. Just sit there. Breathe. Don't move."It's now that I noticed the car's jacked windshield, which sports a hole the size of, well, my upper torso.[...]"That was crazy. Crazy," Owens confirmed. "You all right, man?"

So wait. The same TO that has been portrayed as a menace to society actually helped someone? And furthermore, the same man who had been drawn through the mud more than anyone else in the history of the network actually made sure an employee of that network was OK after suffering a severe car crash? Wow, that sure makes TO sound like a normal human to me, not the fire-breathing monster that hates his teammates as much as he loves money, which is after all what ESPN led us to believe. This whole revelation was way too much for ESPN to report, after all their little lab creation had turned human right before their eyes. So ESPN decided to make no mention of the accident and TO's response anywhere on their site or on their network, even though the event involved one of their own employees. The only show that even paid lip-service to the event was "ESPN First Take" on which Skip Bayless opined that TO didn't help the man out of the car out of goodness of heart, but instead implied that his actions were staged so that he'd become more of a good guy in the eyes of public perception. Basically it came down to ESPN having a chance to apologize to a man they did their best to destroy, but instead they came off as too prideful to acknowledge even one good thing that Terrell Owens did in his life.

I'll complete this commentary by comparing the Terrell Owens coverage to that of which ESPN has given to Brett Favre. For two athletes that are much more similar than you would think, ESPN has clearly taken sides based untrue racial beliefs and our society's hidden fear to accept black people the same way we accept whites. Lets take a look and see how similar Owens and Favre really are. Both won Super Bowl titles early in their career and have failed to since. Owens has come closest recently, putting in a legendary performance on a broken foot against the Patriots, while Favre interceptions have led to the two most recent Packer losses in NFC Championship games. Both men have achieved NFL records during their career. Favre has virtually every passing record in the league, and Owens may very well have a chance at wide reciever career records if he maintains his current pace. Both men are fearsome competitors willing to play through pain in order to win. On the opposite end of things, both men also have enormous ego's that have led to similar events in their careers, although the media has treated them very differently. Whereas Owens' confrontations with quarterbacks Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb have turned him into a egotistical manaic, Favre's confrontations with star receiver Javon Walker and understudy Aaron Rodgers have been blown over time after time. And while Owens' desire to play for a different team made him selfish, Favre's obvious intention to play for the Minnesota Vikings is fine and dandy in the eyes of the media. In fact, if you look at the play of both men in recent years, it can be argued that it is Owens who deserves the benefit of the doubt more than Favre. While Owens is still a top-5 receiver in the NFL, Favre's play has been falling off greatly in recent years. (And for those buffoons who think Favre had a great year last year, the reason he was better was because defenses had to focus on the Packers running game which allowed Favre more time to find his two excellent recievers on the outside against single coverage). It was Favre who threw the interception in overtime against the Giants, yet he is still glorified and exempted from any sort of blame.

So after looking at every angle in this comparison, its easy to see that the difference between Brett Favre and Terrell Owens comes down to one constrast that is as easy to see as black and white. Favre for almost 20 years has been the white hero of America, the kind of guy that we can look up to and admire. Substance abuse, illegitimate children, greed, selfishness, and bad play have all been ignored while ESPN and the rest of the media focus more on the fact that Favre "has fun" when he plays, "seems like a nice guy to be around", and "only cares about winning". On the other hand, Owens has become the black boogeyman for our society, a figure who becomes the straw man for white Americans to implicity state the racist beliefs they still have towards blacks. He is the greedy black thug who cares about money more than his teammates. He is a publicity whore who is destroying our country's moral fabric. He is the player who parents refuse to allow their son's to pretend to be in backyard football games. He may even be gay. Nevermind the fact that he is one of the best wide receivers in NFL history who has played injured in the biggest games and still produced, who has become an excellent teammate since joining the Dallas Cowboys, and even helps out people involved in car crashes, that side of TO doesn't help further ESPN's racial agenda, which is all about glorifying white men while crucifying similar black men and forcing its viewers to agree with this perception.

If a tree falls in the forest...

In an era of overwhelming sensationalism in television medium, Young Swole finds it shocking that one of the most high-profile athletes stands accused of serious violations and crimes and yet is being ignored.

Two years ago Reggie Bush was on top of the world. He was one of the most electrifying college athletes we had seen in years and was poised to make millions of dollars in the NFL. Since then, a lot has gone wrong though. He hasn't lived up to the hype in New Orleans despite being surrounded by some of the greatest offensive weapons in the entire league, but more damaging are the off the field concerns that have been raised. For years, many skeptics have wondered if USC could build such a powerful football program in a clean way, and while it was hard to find a crack in the Trojan Program, the Achilles heel (pun intended) may in fact turn out to be the face of the USC dynasty in the 2000's, Reggie Bush himself.

Bush is accused of borrowing money from people like Lloyd Lake, an ex gang member who became a sports agent, while playing at USC. Lake is believed to have financed a car for Bush and home for his family, which if true would violate NCAA rules. To make the case even more serious, Lake is now suing Bush because he claims Bush has not paid him back despite making millions of dollars a year. While this is a very serious deal, it unfortunately isn't even the biggest story. What makes the entire situation so shocking is how the overwhelming majority of sports media has chosen to ignore it.

For the past few years, ESPN has degenerated before our eyes into a daily tabloid of sports drama, instead of a reputable source of sports information. Their habit is to choose a controversial team or player, and cover them so extensively that they run the story into the ground before they choose another candidate to feed on for the next rating cycle. Players like Terrell Owens, Michael Vick and Barry Bonds and teams like the New York Yankees are beaten into our collective psyche like a bad catchy song. It seems like the developing Reggie Bush saga would have ESPN executives licking their chops as they see it as an opportunity to fill up another 3 months of programming. Yet if you turn on ESPN you will never hear a mention of the case. Lip service is paid to the fact that Bush's bodyguards threatened Lake's life at a hearing last month, or that Bush didn't show up at a mandatory court appearance yesterday, or even that USC is investigating Bush's financial background and may forfeit victories and championships. In a story that seems like a much bigger deal than most of the other garbage we hear about daily (The Best Highlight of All time for example), why is ESPN almost entirely ignoring it, when it seems so quick to jump on the bandwagon of every sensational sports story that exists?

Here are 3 quick reasons why ESPN is ignoring it:

1. USC was ESPN's glory program for college football. 2 years ago, their talking heads were saying USC was the best football team in the history of college sports before they even won a title (which they promptly lost to Texas). This year they severely overrated the Trojans at the beginning of the year again, and then constantly rated them as the best team at the end of the season despite being no more impressive than many other teams around the nation. This coverage included fawning over the accomplishments of Bush which while impressive, have to be looked at harshly in hindsight if Lake's allegations are true. To bury Bush's career, ESPN is effectively burying all the hype they put into the USC program, which would make them look foolish.

2. Reggie Bush has carefully crafted an image as a clean-cut athlete that fans can look up to. ESPN is quick to bury athletes they deem controversial like a TO, who hasn't done anything near what Bush is accused of. The fact that they play favorites is bad enough (just look at their coverage of Brett Favre and the Patriots last football season), but to not treat all players fairly in the wake of recent and enlightening events is frankly a disservice to ESPN's viewership.

3. Most importantly, Reggie Bush's attorney is a man named David Cornwell. ESPN viewers may remember him as the legal authority then turned to when the Bonds and Vick fiascos were ongoing. Now Cornwell is the man orchestrating the possibly criminal acts that Bush is undertaking, all while still being considered a respectable legal authority in the eyes of ESPN. This entire relationship screams of a conflict of interest. Simply because a person has been on your tv channel before does not mean he should be above the law, and above the judgment of those with the power to do so. By protecting Cornwell, and thus his client Bush, ESPN is stunting the legal process, and also proving highly hypocritical in its reporting and opinion-forming.

So while this Bush story is not going away any time soon, and in all likelihood will only grow more important in the coming months, it may be ignored on one of the most important sports media outlets in the world. Bush may be guilty or innocent, the legal process will surely find that out, but we can already safely say that ESPN is guilty of biased reporting in what may turn out to be a more serious case than all of the sensationalized garbage they have thrust upon America over the last few years.